Planning a deployment of radio cells is a complex task, which requires taking into consideration a variety of parameters. The planning is particularly difficult for the deployment of radio cells inside a building. The parameters to take into consideration include: a particular layout of the building, propagation and absorption characteristics of the building, specific radio interface(s) supported by the radio cells, specific characteristics of the radio cells, interferences between radio cells, etc. To obtain an optimal coverage, the deployed radio cells need to be positioned close enough to each other, while at the same time minimizing interferences there between. Also, the position of each radio cell should be selected judiciously to minimize the total number of radio cells required to obtain optimal coverage.
Many software tools have been developed to plan radio cell deployment and simulate radio cell coverage. Such tools were initially designed to support deployment of macro cells in a cellular network. With the advent of small cells, other software tools were developed to support specific constraints encountered in small cell planning and deployment. Small cells may be deployed indoor and/or outdoor, for instance to improve radio coverage provided by a cellular network of a specific Network Operator in a building, around a building or in a business district of a city.
Typically, planning radio cell deployments requires a first step of data collection and memorization (e.g. via a data collection software tool) on the premises of the deployment, followed by a second step where the planning software tool effectively processes the collected data to simulate radio cell coverage. This two steps planning process lacks in flexibility and reactivity.
Furthermore, radio frequencies propagation require complicated mathematical equations to accurately simulate radio cell propagation inside buildings, so as to appropriately take into consideration the multiple parameters which affect RF propagation inside a building. These complicated mathematical equations require such processing capabilities, which cannot be realistically delivered by portable computing devices such as tablets and smartphones. Because of the complexity of the environment, RF propagation calculations inside buildings is usually performed by technicians and engineers specializing in RF propagation inside buildings.
Therefore, there is a need for a new a method, computing device and computer program product for RF propagation calculation and visual representation thereof.